Holiday Knit Dress

 Ok there is a reason I don’t typically sew for myself, and why when I do I don’t share them here. 1. I have to wrangle my husband to take a picture of me and not only do I feel like  total dork and I have no idea what to do with my arms/hands… (seriously how do they become so awkward when the camera comes out?) but it always seems my husband who only pays half attention to what he is doing never gets me in focus… 2. I am rarely pleased with how something turned out. You see… I am pretty err umm… busty. There I said it. It is seriously my biggest challenge (literally) Having children just increased this issue. I do have a waist. (and some hips thanks kids) My issue is that I aways feel like a large bust makes me feel frumpy or just kind of “big” all over. So when my husband brought home his invite for his work Christmas party to which I read… “best holiday attire requested” I realized I didn’t have any holiday like dress up clothing. Really I needed a new dress anyway. So I made a dress… what did I use? Knit. Why? Nothing is more comfortable or has a more flattering drape than knit. I picked up this super soft and stretchy rayon knit and I was set. Now this is kind of a crappy mini tutorial because I changed the dress 3 times while I was making it. (sometimes things don’t go as planned the first time) that made making a tutorial kind of tricky. But hopefully you will get the idea. It is pretty easy to make I just used a tee shirt as my guide.

 So I made a front and back bodice piece following a well fitting tee as my guide. I also made sleeve pieces that I don’t have a picture of since I changed them a bit but I made the sleeve drafted after the tee shirt’s sleeve only I made the curve of the sleeve a few inches taller so that I could add a ruffle there. I also made a full front facing and then just a back neck facing… not really sure why I kind of wish I would have done a full facing on the front and back the double layer just helps make everything look smoother so you don’t see bra line and all, which would have been nice for the back… Then Sew them right sides together at the shoulder as seen above. Then sew the facing right sides together to the bodice, along the neckline. Turn right side out.

 Next sew in the sleeve. Now in the picture you will see pleats… but I took the sleeve out and made it a gather instead, either is fine really.

 Then sew the bodice right sides together along the sleeve and sides. You now have a bodice. For the skirt I just cut a large rectangle (double the width of my waist) and sewed it to make a huge tube. Then I gathered the top. Sew the bodice to the skirt right sides together. Then hem the bottom of the skirt.

 Now for the sleeves. Because of the way they were cut and sewn with the gather they will have kind of a cone effect on the shoulder. I tried it on for this step… Take that cone and pull it down and tack it in place with the bottom of the sleeve so it has a little gather. I just tacked a stitch or two to secure it. It will kind of look like this. This makes the “cone” look go away and it adds a cool look to the sleeve. Then that’s it. Done with a super easy, and quick holiday dress and since it is knit it is super comfy.

 I especially love the sleeve detail since it makes it a little more special.

I simply throw on a belt to define the waist  a little more, you could skip that if you wanted it just has a nice little gathered waist line. So there you have it… sewing for me. Next up holiday dress for the little one…